Garden City ? If drought conditions persist, wheat yields could be severely affected, agriculture officials say.

“It was a terrible winter, just terrible, and we need all the moisture out here we can get,” said Alan Baker, Wichita County’s Kansas State University extension agent. “Hot, windy days suck the moisture right out of the ground, and each day like this is making it worse.”

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius requested an agricultural disaster designation for Scott County from the U.S. Department of Agriculture because of severe weather conditions, including drought and high winds adversely affecting corn, sorghum and wheat production in the county.

State climatologist Mary Knapp said because winter precipitation is typically low, drought conditions stay relatively under control during the months of December through February.

“But every day in March without rain, your drought conditions intensify more rapidly,” she said.

Over the last two years, Scott County has seen about two inches less moisture over the course of the year than average annual precipitation over the last few decades, according to the Weather and Data Library at Kansas State. In March 2008, Scott County received a third of an inch of rain. The March average is 1.5 inches.

Officials from several state agencies said they expect more counties in the region to request agricultural disaster designations in the coming months.

If the designation in Scott County is approved, farmers and ranchers would be eligible for emergency low-interest loans to pay for production losses through the USDA Farm Agency Service based in Manhattan, said Trish Halstead, an information officer. A designation also may make farmers eligible for future disaster programs, pending federal regulations, she said.

Federal help is good, but rain would be better, said Scott County wheat farmer Jon Buehler.

“If it doesn’t rain, the wheat will continue to wither away instead of growing strong,” he said.